While looking for material to write part two of an article, ‘Guyana Honours its Women Writers’ I came across something that channelled my attention in another direction but it was still connected to women writing. That lead was good as you will see.

In that first part of the feature, the focus was on 50 women writers exhibited by the Ministry of Human Services & Social Security in collaboration with the National Library. The University of Guyana Library also made a contribution to the exhibition that was staged at the National Library during the latter part of May.
My surfing led me to the work of Joan Cambridge, discovering there is a physical connection between Maya Angelou and Guyana. That connection was through Joan Cambridge and her late husband, Julian Mayfield. Cambridge is the author of ‘Clarise Cumberbatch want to go home’.
The writing of Maya Angelou has long entered the psyche of Guyanese, resounding and resonating over Guyana at various forums, publicly in the heart of the city, and in faraway corners of the country. However, there is a greater focus on Angelou’s poems because they can be performed from the pulpit to the parliament, poems like ‘And still I rise’, and ‘I know why the caged bird sings’ ….
I also discovered there is also a West Indian connection to Maya Angelou – her maternal grandfather was Trinidadian. But far greater than her connection to Guyana, far greater than her West Indian connection, is her connection to the world.
Here are a few verses from ‘And still I rise’ which is essentially the voice of people everywhere attempting to right wrongs.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Before the above mentioned connections, it would be useful to remember that the early literature of Guyana was closely linked to the English Literary tradition, a tradition that has produced writers like Shakespeare, Jane Austin, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Roald Dahl, C. S. Lewis, Dickens, John Fowles, P. G. Wodehouse, Lewis Carroll, Francis Bacon, Chaucer, Ted Hughes, Samuel Johnson, W. E. Johns, John Keats, Anna Sewell, Mary Shelly, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Evelyn Waugh, just to name a few established ones that come readily to mind. In many ways, our literature is still linked to that tradition but our literature is also now influenced by other literary traditions including the literature produced by American writers including the contribution of Maya Angelou who recently passed away. Even though list of outstanding American writers is lengthy, it is tempting to mention a few: F. Scott Fitzgerald – ‘The Great Gatsby’; Walt Whitman – ‘Leaves of Grass’; Mark Twain – ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’; Ernest Hemingway – ‘The Old Man and the Sea’; Harper Lee – ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’; Margaret Mitchell – ‘Gone with the Wind’; Alice Walker – ‘The colour Purple’; Tony Morrison – ‘Beloved’; Tennessee Williams – ‘The glass Menagerie’; Ralph Ellison – ‘The Invisible Man’; Alex Haley – ‘Roots’; J. D. Salinger – ‘The Catcher in the Rye’; Phillip Roth -. ‘Goodbye Columbus’; Pearl S. Buck – ‘The Good Earth’….

The life and work of Maya Angelou will continue to connect to people where there are wrongs to be righted and will inspire people to share their struggles and triumphs because the caged bird will forever be singing of freedom.
Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com

What’s Happening:
• You are invited to repeat performances of ‘Expressions’ – a new forum for poetry on Thursday, July 10, at Theatre Guild, school show at 1 pm, public show at 8 pm. ‘Expressions’ is a Gems Theatre Production.
Written By Petamber Persaud